At 3:25 I lost my nerve. My clothes were by no means dry yet, but I put them back on anyway. Constable Nika Mandiç had struck me as the type that would be on time.
She was.
In those last five minutes, vestigial core body heat trapped by my damp clothes and leather jacket had achieved a sort of wet-suit effect. I’d begun to feel…well, not warm, but less than maximally cold. Then I saw her headlights and got out of the car, and the breeze hit me, and I got chilled all over again before I had time to zip the jacket up.
Okay, it wasn’t as bad as before. I wasn’t cold enough to actually shudder or chatter anymore. Summer nights in Vancouver are generally pretty pleasant. It might not have seemed a cold night at all, if I’d been dry—I’d originally gone out in it without the leather jacket. I was really no worse than uncomfortable and miserable as I walked to her vehicle.
I’d been expecting her to drive something macho while on duty—a generic cop Plymouth or a Crown Vic or, given her personality, maybe even a Humvee. What I got instead made me smile a bit despite my discomfort. Her own private car, the same one I’d rescued for her that afternoon. A Honda Accord, the same anonymous grey as mine, and no more than a couple of years younger by the looks of the body. Why would she be driving her own ride on duty? She wasn’t a detective. An undercover assignment, perhaps?
No, she was in uniform when she got out. “Good evening, Mr. Walker,” she greeted me, and just from the tone of her voice I knew she was having second thoughts about this. Well, so was I. In fact, all of a sudden I saw a hole in my planning that might spell disaster.
“Good evening, Constable Mandiç. You have a cell phone with you, right?”
To my vast relief, she nodded and pointed to it on her uniform belt, next to the gun.
“Good. Come for a walk with me, please. It’s not far.”
To my pleasant surprise, she didn’t speak her misgivings. “Okay, Mr. Walker.”
I led her down to the water, and back along the shore to the point where I had come thrashing out of the water earlier. It was easier going now that the tide was at its lowest, and I knew where the worst patches of rocks were. And the overcast was letting up a little; armed with the knowledge of where it was, I was able to spot Zudie’s boat this time, about a hundred meters offshore, making just enough way to hold his position, the engine sound inaudible in the wind.
I asked Constable Mandiç for her phone, and dialed my own. Zudie picked up at once. “Hey, Slim.”
“How about it?” I asked without preliminaries. “Are you getting anything, or what?”
“Repeat after me,” he said.
“Wait a sec—I haven’t explained what I’m doing yet.”
“She’ll figure it out. Repeat after me.”
“Okay,” I said. I turned to her, and started repeating, one sentence at a time, what Zudie said:
“Your career is in the toilet…” Her eyes widened at that and she started to rebut; I overrode her.
“But it doesn’t deserve to be…Your father and grandfather and your maternal aunt were all cops…Hero cops, all three…Yes, two of them were in another city, but still it should have counted for something…” She was frowning ferociously, but held her peace. “Your grades at the academy were outstanding, and between that and your performance since, you should be at least one pay grade higher by now…and getting much better postings.
“What is her posting?” I asked Zudie, because her frown had become a glare that was actually a little frightening.
He told me—and my heart sank. I hadn’t expected much, I’d known she was of low rank, but…the words “Oh my God,” slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Now she was glowering.
“You’re Constable Friendly?”
Even in the dark I could tell her face was beet red. “I drive one of the two Police Community Services Trailers.”
“Full of ‘crime prevention’ displays donated by local businesses, right? Let me guess: lock displays, home alarm displays, a dangerous drugs exhibit, pamphlets full of worthless crimestopper tips—”
In my ear, Zudie said, “She’s thinking of popping you one in the mouth. Stop pissing her off and start impressing her with our magic powers.”
“—but what am I saying? I don’t have to guess,” I segued, and let Zudie feed me my lines again. “A Police Community Services Trailer is comprised of a 1996 GMC one-ton ‘crew cab’ style pickup truck…and an 8.5-meter or twenty-eight-foot ‘fifth-wheel’ style trailer…It was acquired by the Community Services Section in January 2003…It was the second such facility; the first having been acquired in June 1996…It serves as both a display unit and a mobile crime prevention office…All nineteen Community Police Offices use it occasionally as a mobile office for their own functions…the whole unit is fifteen and a quarter meters long, call it fifty feet, and as tall as two of the pickup trucks stacked…Jesus, what a behemoth…so you have to plan your route, and there are some places you just can’t get to…”
By this point she had actually stepped back a pace. She put a hand on her gun, although she may not have been aware of it. “Mr. Walker, what is the name of this game?” she demanded.
“I am trying to show you that I know things I can’t possibly know.”
“Crap. You could have gotten most of that off the internet—”
“Listen to me,” Zudie said through my mouth. “I know why you keep getting the shit postings.”
“Crap,” she repeated. “Nobody does. Nobody outside the department.”
“I do. And it’s not on the internet.”
“It sure as hell isn’t! Okay, go ahead: why am I driving a fucking Museum of Boredom?”
“Because you’re not gay.”
As the words were leaving my lips, I felt the rightness of them. One of the less widely known, and never discussed, facts about the Vancouver Police Department is that an unusually large fraction of the women on the force are gay. So what? you say, and I’m politically correct enough to want to say the same. But I had to admit it did matter. To be in that department, and look as macho and fit and, well, as handsome as Constable Nika Mandiç, and not be a dyke…well, I could see that it might not put her on the fast track for rapid career advancement.
“How could you possibly know about that?”
Zudie had me say, “The same way I know that all the women in your family die of heart failure…or that you always put two sheets of Bounce into the dryer instead of one…or that your secret vice is Stallone movies, which you label something else on the videotape boxes so no one will know…or that you got your period about an hour ago.”
She came up close, put her eyes only centimeters from mine. I felt their force. “Where are you getting your information, Mr. Walker?”
I moved the hand I held the phone with. “My friend.”
“What’s his name?”
I shook my head no, with some difficulty. “Maybe later.”
“Where is he getting his information?”
Time to go for broke. “From you.”
“What?”
Zudie prompted me again. “He doesn’t just know your first boyfriend was named David. He knows that actually, David was just the first boyfriend that anyone ever found out about. He knows about Jamie.”
“Nobody knows about Jamie,” she hollered, but as she was hollering she was moving, and by the time I realized that, she had already drawn her gun, put it to my head, and wrenched her phone from my hand.
The next bit of conversation I heard only her side of.
“Who is this?…Oh yeah? Whose? Not my friend…So? if that’s true, quit jerking me around and tell me what’s…what did you say?…Right. Uh huh.”
Her eyes refocused on me again; she noticed I was wincing and backed off the pressure of the gun muzzle against my temple. “He says he’s reading my mind,” she told me.
Very carefully, I nodded. “He is.”
She frowned, and her eyes went vague again. “Look, pal,
” she said into the phone, “if you’re reading my…what?”
And then she just listened to him talk, without saying a word—for something like three or four minutes. She stopped being aware of me, and since her face was close enough to blow on, I could follow it even in the darkness as it went through an extraordinary series of expressions. Once or twice she opened her mouth as if to speak, but each time it proved unnecessary after all. At one point she suddenly looked around in all directions, but she didn’t seem to spot Zudie’s boat.
Finally, either he was done, or she was done listening for a while; she let the hand holding the phone drop to her side, without breaking the connection. She turned to face the Harbour, and stared out at it for perhaps thirty seconds, facing about thirty degrees to the right of where I knew Zudie was floating in the dark. I left her alone with her thoughts, feeling one of us ought to.
She let out her breath in a long sigh, put the phone back to her head, said, “Hold on,” and let it fall again without waiting for reply. Turning to me again, she began a series of questions mostly phrased as statements.
“He reads minds, you don’t.”
“That’s right.”
“He’d rather not. He can’t help it. He can’t turn it off.”
“Yes.”
“It hurts him. Bad?”
“If he could make it stop by something as simple as castrating himself or pulling out his eyes, I don’t think he’d hesitate.”
She nodded. “I can see how that would be. It’s killing him to be this close to me.”
“Yeah, I think it is.”
“He’s out there in some kind of little boat.”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t going to tell me his name, or where he lives.”
I spread my hands. “It wouldn’t help you if I did. He’s off the grid. No address, no driver’s license, no credit cards or phone number.”
A pause. Then: “You’ve known him a long time, Mr. Walker.”
I nodded. “More than thirty years. Except we haven’t seen each other for thirty of it.”
She thought about that. “So he’s been walking around inside your skull since you were in your twenties. And you’re okay with that. You find him that trustworthy?”
I didn’t answer right away. Finally I said, “Look, Constable, I’m going to be as honest as I can with you. I’m not sure I find anybody that trustworthy. I’d rather he couldn’t see through my skull. What I can tell you is that in thirty-some years, so far I have never had cause to be sorry that he can. He’s…he’s been a good friend.”
“Really.”
“A better friend to me than I’ve been to him,” I said, thinking back on some of the things I’d said about him behind his back in college. No, come to think of it, it hadn’t been behind his back, had it? Nobody had ever said anything behind his back. It came to me suddenly that maybe first impressions are the most accurate: unconditional forgiveness must indeed be something he knew more about than most of us.
She lifted the phone to her ear, nodded, and reported to me, “He says you’re wrong.”
There, you see? I thought. “He would,” I agreed.
She seemed to come to a decision. “Okay,” she said briskly to us both. “I accept the premise. An hour ago I’d have bet cash it was nonsense but I accept it. You, Popeye the Sailor, what’s your name?” He told her. “Okay. So you read minds, Zudie. Since you’re telling me, and I’m a police officer, I infer that your talent has brought you knowledge of a crime of some kind. But it has to be something that you can’t just dial 911 and report, for some reason. Excuse me?” She listened for a while. “Okay.”
She put the phone down. “He says to find myself a seat, this is going to take a while. And he wants to talk to you.”
“There are some logs over there,” I said, and pointed with my Maglite, dialed way low. She nodded and gave me the phone.
“Why don’t you go for a walk, Slim?” Zudie suggested. “You’ve already heard more of this part than you wanted to. She’s going to need to hear more than that, to prove how tough she is.”
I was reluctant to leave her, but he had a point. “How long will you need?”
“Stay within shout; I’ll have her call you when she’s ready.”
“All right.” I went to where she was seated, gave her her phone back, and said, “This is where I came in. Give me a holler when you’ve caught up on the What Has Gone Before.” I started to turn away.
“Russell?”
It was the first time she’d used my ex-Christian name, and it startled me a little. “Yes, Nika?” I responded without thinking.
She didn’t object. “A lot of guys wouldn’t have done this.”
“I admit it’s a bit of a hassle,” I said, “but it was the only way I could think of to do it. Zudie needed to be able to get clear, if you wouldn’t go for it.” Or, I didn’t add, if you turned out to be the kind of cop who’d think that a telepath was a lovely thing to own.
She nodded. “That’s my point. You thought it needed doing—enough to go out of your way. Most people don’t get involved.”
“Wait until you hear,” I said. “Nobody could walk away.”
“Okay. Still. Thanks for stepping up.”
Why argue? “You’re welcome. I’ll see you in a while.”
I wandered back in the direction of the parking lot. Even in near total darkness, and in damp clothing, looking out across Vancouver Harbour can’t help but be magical. Large bodies of water are always soothing to the spirit. Far across the water are the twinkles of North Vancouver and West Vancouver, and beyond them the looming mountains. Straight ahead of me as I walked and sprawling way out to the left was the Emerald City itself, downtown Vancouver, with Stanley Park at its leftmost end. To my right trees marched off up a steep slope; here and there higher up the night lights of private residences could be picked out, as close as a few thousand meters away. A lot of harbours smell bad—Halifax’s reeks—but so far Vancouver’s doesn’t. The footing was as much rocks as it was sand, but since I wasn’t really going anywhere, it seldom got bad enough to call for my Maglite.
The view was so magnificent I was tempted to walk as far as the parking lot, get my pipe from the car, and have a few tokes, but it would have taken me out of earshot for a few minutes. It also would have left me with dope breath, and I intuitively felt that my new first-name basis with Constable Nika was not yet quite solid enough to be tested in that way. The Supreme Court had recently struck down the federal law against simple possession, and the legal right to medical marijuana had been cautiously established—but the various police agencies across the country had not yet quite stabilized on how they felt about it, nor had the individual officers within them. Nobody was lighting up in front of cops, yet, except a few flagrant activists like Marc Emery. I’ve been a head for so long that I didn’t think I’d ever be really comfortable smoking in front of an on-duty police officer, whatever our relationship. In any case this was not the night to find out.
I picked out a stretch of easy walking between two rock farms and paced it slowly back and forth, like Hornblower on his quarterdeck. The image made me clasp my hands behind my back, and say “Hrrrrumph!” every once in a while. Each time I walked westward I tried to spot Constable Nika or Zudie, or hear her voice, but I never succeeded. After a while I found I was mostly dry by now, and no longer cold. Good old body heat.
I had to admit I was very impressed with her mental resilience. I like to think I have an unusually open and flexible mind, and on my best days it may be true—but it had taken me many months of slow accumulation of knowledge to believe my roommate Smelly was a telepath. And then thirty more years to admit it to myself consciously. She had accepted it almost at once. Granted, she’d been given convincing proof, an advantage I had lacked back in 1967, but still.
I saw her coming toward me. On that ankle-breaker terrain, in extreme darkness, she moved like someone on well-lit pavement in a big hurry. It was good I hap
pened to be facing her way or I wouldn’t have known she was coming until she gave me the heart attack. When she reached me she handed me the phone without a word. I put it to my ear.
“What do you want me to do with this phone now, Slim?” Zudie asked.
I hadn’t thought about it, which made me mad at myself. Now that I did think about it, all the options sucked—which didn’t improve my mood. “Hang on to it,” I decided. “I’ll get another one.”
He sighed audibly. “I really hate to own one of these. They ring, don’t they?”
“Not if you leave them switched off.”
“Then why have it?”
“Zudie, I don’t know! It’ll be useful down the line, probably. I can’t keep swimming out to meet you every time you want to talk to someone.”
“Won’t it be a nuisance for you, telling everyone your number’s changed?”
“Yes, god damn it, it will, okay? But not as much nuisance as swimming back out there to get it, or working out some way for you to stash it on Heron Island somewhere I can find it and nobody else will. In fact, not much nuisance at all, now I think of it: I hardly ever give out my cell number. Can we drop it?”
“Okay.”
I glanced at Nika. She was pointedly ignoring my conversation, staring out to sea. Her body language was hard to read. She seemed to be breathing faster than normal. “So where are we?”
“Talk to her.”
“Okay. Smooth sailing home. I’ll call you tomorrow. As soon as I get my new cell phone.”
“Good night, Slim.”
I hung up and gave her her phone back. “Well?” I said.
She said, “We need a shitload of caffeine.”
I shook my head. “We need a fuckofalot. That’s three shitloads…or shitsload, if you’re a purist.”
She nodded and smiled at my feeble joke, the first smile I had ever seen on her face. Her eyes were bright. “When you’re right, you’re right.”
The smile was my reward for pretending not to notice that she was scared half to death.
Very Bad Deaths Page 12